Five films to see at the 2016 Kinote­ka Film Festival

Organ­ised by the Pol­ish Cul­tur­al Insti­tute in Lon­don, the Kinote­ka Film Fes­ti­val – now in its 14^th year – is the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to catch the best of clas­sic and con­tem­po­rary Pol­ish cin­e­ma. This year sees the fes­ti­val offer­ing spe­cial focus on three leg­endary Pol­ish direc­tors: Andrzej Żuławs­ki, Agniesz­ka Hol­land and Jerzy Skolimows­ki. LWLies has scoured through the pro­gramme and picked out a selec­tion of films that are sim­ply too good to miss.

Alek­sander Hertz’s silent film chron­i­cled the scan­dalous real-life love affair between a Pol­ish actress and a Russ­ian cav­al­ry offi­cer at the end of the 19^th cen­tu­ry. It was thought to be lost for near­ly 100 years, until the film reels were dis­cov­ered, hid­den away in the Bun­de­sarchiv in Berlin. Now it returns to the big screen, with a live sound­track spe­cial­ly com­posed by Paweł Szam­burs­ki, Patryk Zakroc­ki, and Sebas­t­ian Wypych. It promis­es to be an extra­or­di­nary event based around a rare and remark­able arte­fact of Pol­ish cin­e­ma. 8 April, Regent Street Cin­e­ma, 21:00

Demon offers a mod­ern explo­ration of the idea of the dyb­buk: a mali­cious spir­it from Jew­ish mythol­o­gy with abil­i­ties to pos­sess the liv­ing. As a groom pre­pares to mar­ry his fiancée, the dis­cov­ery of human remains leads to haunt­ing events which threat­en to unrav­el the wed­ding and, of course, the young man’s mind. Buzz around this one has been big since its debut at Toron­to last year, but its release has been tinged with tragedy as direc­tor Marcin Wrona died short­ly before the film’s pre­mière in Poland. 10 April, Regent Street Cin­e­ma, 18:30

As anti-migrant sen­ti­ment builds in the run-up to this year’s EU ref­er­en­dum, Jerzy Skolimowski’s 1982 film Moon­light­ing feels more rel­e­vant than ever. Jere­my Irons stars as Nowak, the only Eng­lish speak­er in a group of Pol­ish builders arriv­ing in Lon­don to ren­o­vate a house. But as news breaks that mar­tial law has been imposed back home, he must decide whether to tell his coun­try­men what is going on. The fes­ti­val will also screen Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Marks: None, Walkover, and Hands Up!, a tril­o­gy of must-see ear­ly works by Skolimows­ki in which the direc­tor him­self plays the lead roles. 13 April, Bar­bi­can Cin­e­ma 2, 18:30

Eng­lish-speak­ing audi­ences prob­a­bly know her best for her work on TV shows like Treme, The Wire and House of Cards, but Agniesz­ka Hol­land is one of Poland’s most emi­nent and tal­ent­ed film­mak­ers. Her debut fea­ture, Provin­cial Actors, sees a sea­soned thes­pi­an clash­ing with an upstart young direc­tor while his mar­riage is on the verge of col­lapse. A selec­tion of posters from Holland’s films will be on dis­play at London’s BFI South­bank, while Hol­land her­self will be in con­ver­sa­tion with the Guardian’s Mark Law­son there on 12 April. 15 April, BFI South­bank NFT 2, 18:15

As stu­dent of French cin­e­ma, Pol­ish mav­er­ick Andrzej Żuławs­ki made some of his most famous works in the French lan­guage. In That Most Impor­tant Thing: Love, the great Romy Schnei­der plays a strug­gling actress stuck in cheap erot­i­ca films, torn between her loy­al hus­band (Jacques Dutronc) and the pho­tog­ra­ph­er who ded­i­cates him­self to advanc­ing her career. Also play­ing at Kinote­ka are The Dev­il, which was banned by the Com­mu­nist gov­ern­ment upon its release in 1972, and Cos­mos, the final film Żuławs­ki made before his death in Feb­ru­ary of this year. 16 April, ICA, 18:25

For full fes­ti­val list­ings vis­it kinote​ka​.org​.uk